Gaslighting America

Gaslighting is the systematic attempt by one person to erode another’s reality. This is done by telling them that what they are experiencing isn’t so—and, the gradual giving up on the part of the other person. -Dr. Robin Stern, The Gaslight Effect

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In the old movie, Gaslight, a woman is driven mad by her husband. He convinces her that she is imagining things. He keeps lighting a gas lamp in the house, causing the other lamps to become dimmer. When the wife confronts him about this, he repeatedly tells her that it’s all in her imagination and that the lamps are most assuredly not dimmer. Over time, the victim begins to doubt her own perceptions of reality, accepting that her husband must be right. His goal was to gain control over her fortune. Experts who work with emotional abuse victims recognize gaslighting—oppressors manipulate their victims into doubting their own perceptions of reality. The abuser’s goal is to get his victim to affirm that he is right—she’s the problem, not him. Most domestic abusers, however, don’t have abetment from a depraved media. Barack Obama and his cronies are using the same crazy-making tactics depicted in Gaslight, and later, George Orwell’s 1984. Obama proxies in the administration, Janet Napolitano and Eric Holder, would have us believe that we are engaged in “overseas contingency operations” to deal with “man caused disasters.” Napolitano actually contends, straight faced, that our border with Mexico is secure, despite a surfeit of evidence to show that our Mexican border is an anarchical combat zone. Holder peddles even more pernicious feculence. A bright light, rubber hose and sodium pentathol will never get him to concede that there is even the most tenuous of linkages between Islamic jihad and attacks on the United States in the name of Allah. New Black Panthers can menace Philadelphia voters on election day without so much as a whimper of protest from AG Holder. King Samir Shabazz publicly calls for the killing of white “crackers” and their babies. We are directed not to make too much of this. Taxpaying Americans in lawn chairs waving American flags are the real imperilment to our way of life. By definition, the Tea Party movement is animated by racism. This charge is made over and over without a scintilla of credible evidence and taken as absolute, irrefutable fact. The racism charge is especially malignant. We’ve been taught to fear the PC Police at the cost of our own mental health. Originality is not the trademark of the Left—political correctness is cultural Marxism. Joe Biden is having a grand time telling about our glorious Summer of Recovery. The stimulus worked! Sure, you know lost your job and your neighbor is out of work and your brother in law just got downsized out; but, exalt the recovery! As is so often the case in domestic abuse, this kind of psychological abuse can swiftly escalate into violence. The moribund media is feverishly trying to kindle a race war. If the economy gets bad enough, bedlam will ensue. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the KGB, like ACORN, rebranded itself. Now known as the FSB, its operatives brewed a scheme to retake power before the struggling nation had a chance to evolve into a truly free society. KGB officers didn’t file for unemployment, they went to work in the highest levels of the new government. (Link) Combining the pandemonium of the Yeltsin years with FSB-staged apartment house bombings, and war in Chechnya drove the Russian people to seek safety over freedom. It works the same way in domestic abuse cases. Once the victim is adequately disoriented and intimidated, the abuser becomes the sole source of comfort. It’s especially helpful to the abuser if he can cut off the victim’s access to outside influence from friends and family, along with anyone else who might dare to pass along some actual truth. In due course, the victim becomes impervious to facts and evidence. The brainwashing operation is complete. Call it Stockholm Syndrome or as Dr. Patrick Carnes calls it, Traumatic Bonding. The theory of Stockholm Syndrome rests on the tenacity of traumatic bonding. Abusive relationships are more difficult to end than healthy ones. Our relationship to a president who lies to us and betrays the sovereignty of the nation is, unquestionably, abusive. Bonds formed through traumatic events are far more durable than bonds forged via healthy interactions. The toady press has a great deal invested in Obama. Fortunately, Americans are different, dare we say exceptional. It has taken an extraordinary amount of deceit and manipulation over decades to bring America to the brink of accepting Obama style of overbearing governance.